Things I love about the prairies of Canada and the people who live there…

Enjoying one of the 100,000 lakes in Manitoba

Ok, so this is coming as seen through my mixed up American/European glasses, but being  immersed once again back in my Canadian "Mennonite" home has reminded me of differences and aspects that I find refreshing and very much love about Canada and Canadians. 


So here are a few of them:

Lo……ng summer days…well, it is way up there in the north.

No mountains here, but just look at the contours of those amazing prairie skies…

They value the importance of connection and belonging to a family. 
In Phil's Mennonite heritage background, everyone seems related to everyone. You just have to find the connection.

Phil and his brothers

Cousins

Jesus, church, and fellowship are important (All you Steinbach EMCers, we love you!)

Tuning into CBC while on the road

They can laugh at themselves… If you gets a chance, listen to “This is That” on Canadian CBC radio, and you will know what I am talking about.

They take their shoes off at the front door... ( so all that snow stays out).
Sorry, no picture of this one.

Can't miss going to the MCC thrift store in Steinbach!

 
They have great thrift- and used- book stores!

My favorite!

Wholesome, healthy, homemade food around the table: farmer sausage, vrenike, and rhubarb desserts and pies! (Well, not everything can be healthy J) 

 
 Summer outdoor festivals

Ballet in the park (Winnipeg)

 







They apologize even when there is no reason to.... just because they are nice… I’ve even seen buses  say “SORRY” because they were out of service.

Ev's beautiful garden

Their gardens and their lawns are beautiful and keep them busy all summer long (which is only 3 months).

We very much enjoyed visiting the new Museum of Human Rights in Winnipeg

They are very politically correct…unlike us Americans.

They welcome foreigners, without building walls ;-)

They think that their US neighbors down south have really gone nuts this last little while.

And I think most of all I love that they have “welcomed me home”...me, the sometimes outspoken, blunt, mixed up Euro-American with a first-nations background,  when I show up every other year for a much too briefvisit.

Thank you Canada.  I can’t wait to be back! .....in the summer!

Cheering each other on!

The reformers wall in Geneva, Switzerland

I stood in front of the Reformers’ Wall in Geneva and tears started rolling down my face. I was somewhat surprised by my emotional reaction while facing these imposing five-meter tall, stern-faced stone men who looked as if they were guarding the city of Geneva: Theodore Beza, Willam Farel, John Knox and of course John Calvin .  

Standing there I had a mix of feelings, but mostly ones of awe, respect and great gratitude towards these “saints of old” and the sacrifice and determination they showed hundreds of years ago. They lived out their conviction and provided freedom for their religious beliefs.

 Perhaps it is because of growing up in France as a child of missionaries, where I so often felt skepticism from others towards my “American, protestant” identity.  I remember one day, in my 7^th grade French history class, being asked to get up from my desk, while the teacher pointed me out as a “live example” of a heretic. Or the feeling of being looked at funny when asked what my father’s job was, and I had to answer that he was a pastor, and upon seeing their perplexed faces had to explain that a pastor was a kind of priest, but for the protestants. This of course made no sense to them, since priest were not allowed to get married nor have children, so imagine the category that put me in as a child of a protestant priest. 

So there I stood in June of 2016,…..well aware of today’s current events themes:  refugees fleeing dysfunctional economic systems, people being killed because of their different status or color, others choosing to exit systems that seems imposed on them.  I realized, to a small extent, the importance such people played in making way for the freedoms of today. I also stood there feeling a degree of shame at how today I take the freedom they worked so hard for for granted.

These men stood there like the “great cloud of witnesses” mentioned in Heb.12:1,  and we could add to them so many others who have gone before us and paved the way for the work that we do today.  Of course I couldn’t help but think of the reason I was in Geneva on that very day - to take part in the board meetings of the Leman International Academy, a small Christian bilingual school I had helped “birth” five years ago.  It occurred to me that even in 2016 in Europe, we have to keep fighting hard to keep a school with Christian value-based education an option for families in the Geneva area.  This also applies to other projects that have not been birthed without a struggle.

Alex raised over $1000 running  in the Freiheitslauf, 2016

Those who know me know that I love to run.  Running for a purpose and a goal is something that motivates me, but I have learned that it can’t be done without a price, effort, time and perseverance, nor without people who encourage and believe in what you are doing…..kind of like the “great cloud of witnesses”. 

Some of you are those people for me and it has been great to reconnect with many of you this summer.
 

The city of Geneva doubled in population during the days the protestants were persecuted for their faith. It was known as a “city of refuge”. It kept this “refuge” status and extended it to all sorts of people being persecuted for their differences in 1951, through the Geneva convention on political asylum.

Tammy and Tracy running the race!

So, standing before the Reformers’ Wall on that day, I was encouraged  and motivated to keep running the races set before me: there in Geneva with the little Leman International Academy, but also in my personal walk with God, in my marriage with Phil, my relationships with my kids and family, with my dear friends and the many other “races” set before me. 

Most of us hardly have a day that goes by when we are not on either side of the race: either as the runner who needs encouragement, or as the one who is doing the cheering on …. sometimes we might even have to do both at the same time. 

Keep it up! We need each other!

Hebrews 12:1 says, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders … and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.”

Local refugees ran in the Freiheitslauf with us!

Puppies and Puddles

April 2016

1 week ago we picked up our new little family member - a dog … well, a puppy. Often folks in western “first world” countries think a family is incomplete without a pet. So we think about it, imagine, consider the pros and cons, and deliberate over the decision of adding a “big pet” to our lives.

We actually thought that we had made it through this phase, but no, the Peters finally gave in. I could blame it on our kids who recently used phrases like “Our childhood will never be complete without a dog”, or “Families with dogs are just happier families”, or the latest “You can still save our childhood if you get a dog” – Yes, Michael said this, but in reality I wanted one too. My outdoor, romantic, dreamy images of me running through the woods with my dog got the better of me. So we broke down and took the plunge, and the outcome is that today, on a Sunday morning, I am sitting at home, trying to live-stream our church service (which of course is not working L) while I am “puppy sitting”J because he can’t be left alone yet. Yes, we were warned. We went into it with “eyes somewhat open”.

Try saying no to those eyes

We have quickly discovered that training a puppy is all-consuming.  It is actually ridiculously consuming. I can’t even leave the kitchen/dining area, to which for the moment the puppy is restricted, and our house has been transformed into puppy kindergarten. We took out the carpets, put in safety gates, blocked off all areas we don’t want to “puppy proof”, and now, instead of decorative flowers, baskets with books, and nice cozy rugs I have: boxes, empty plastic bottles, balls, rags, ropes, and old shoes strewn all over the floor. Our vocabulary has changed to “Good, Rocky, peepee”, ”goooood boy”, or an attempt at a deep “NO Rocky”, ”No bite”, “no, no, no, NO…” (to which Phil usually laughs, because of course I can’t compete with the Peters’ deep low voice). Phil and I have even moved into separate bedrooms so that one of us can sleep downstairs next to the kennel during his “potty-training stage”, and the other can get some precious SLEEP!

Up the Blauen, our local mountain, on Phil's Bday

But you know, all in all, we love it! Here is this totally dependent, fun, excited, loving, the cutest of cuties, little being who wants to be with us at all times, who makes a mess, disrupts, adds some grief, but we love him anyways.

Disruptive nights (I thought we were long out of that stage) and wiping up pee puddles on the kitchen floor (Alex claims he is “a real PEEters”), have awoken my “reflective self” and given me something to think about.  I usually like to find a lesson of opportunity in every thing, and because I believe God uses His creation to teach us, I figure he is also teaching me through this silly, first world “puppy challenge”. 

What a life!

Are we a little like a puppy?  And is God the ideal “trainer?”  I’m not going to get theological - I would probably get into trouble. But I am sure thankful that He encounters me with joy and love, not giving up on what He knows I am created to be, …and that He likely often wipes up my pee puddles.

Two Hours that Transformed

How do I know if the school we started in Congo will be what it set out to be, “a school where transformation of the heart takes place”?  I have often thought to myself, “Are our expectations realistic? Are our hopes too high?  Is transformation, the way we understand it, transcultural, or just what our western “Christian” perspective thinks is best ?”

I just got off a long Skype call with my colleague Fima in Congo.  I had been dreading the purpose for the call: trimming our school budget down by $9000.

Fima in his office :-)

In wonderful Congolese tradition, where time is not seen as something we waste or reluctantly give away, Fima asked how I was doing … and really wanted to hear my answer. I asked how he and the school were doing, and took time to listen to what he was saying. After a while we got to the main reason for the call … THE BUDGET.  As we worked our way down the list of revenues and expenses trying to think through the items we could reduce or where we could add revenue we branched off onto various topics, usually communicated through a story, events, or ideas related to each category.

For example, the principal from a neighboring  “Christian” school (I put this in quotations because my African colleague pointed out that Christian might not mean very much in Congo) had approached Fima earlier that morning and asked if our school (FKA) could help train some of their teachers. They wanted to learn what makes our school different. Would we be open to helping them? (We might possibly even gain a little revenue if we set up a training program).

Another idea to help reduce the cost was putting off the hiring of a school janitor. Fima’s idea was to let a young man he had “taken under his wing” do some work for us. He mentioned that he was spending time showing him how to take care of the school ground, how we wanted the school cleaned, and even how to use a vacuum cleaner  (something I have discovered they don’t normally use in Congo).  He mentioned that while he was out there working with him and getting dirty the other day, the teachers had laughed and thought it was great that the head of school was not just sitting in his office, but getting his hands dirty!

He also said, “We don’t have to put money into embellishing the school grounds because the last couple of weeks parents have started bringing little contributions of plants that we can plant on our school grounds … It will all be in bloom when you come in November!”  He also mentioned that parents were so pleased with the transformation they were seeing in their children that they wanted to help in whatever way they could. One little girl who has special motor needs has shown such improvement that the parents are thrilled!  Another boy has quit hitting other children, and many are expressing with words their love for Jesus and others. 

I also told him that some of my friends here in Germany wanted to help the education of children in Congo by participating financially in a child’s education. He was thrilled because he knows so many families that would love to have a child at our school, but they just can’t afford it!

Sand box activities ( we still don't have sand box toys, but it's fun to be creative!)

 By the end of our 2-hour “work call” we amazingly achieved what we had set out to do: “trim our budget by $9000”.  I was pumped! 

 But what thrilled me even more was the confirmation that transformation is happening in and through a little school in the heart of the huge city of Kinshasa. God (Jahweh) is breathing His life into the FATEB Kinshasa Academy to impact, encourage and bring about change in the lives of its students, staff, parents, leadership, a neighboring school, friends here in Europe, my own family, and maybe even some of you ... and that is what really matters!

Kinshasa’s Children- Congo’s Hope for the Future

A normal city street in Kinshasa, Congo

View of the road outside our car

Once again I am shocked at the “state of affairs” in the Congo.

 It feels like one big mess to me. 

Dirt is normal, trash is everywhere: I have yet to see a garbage can other than in the bathroom.  

 The roads and traffic are messed up and crazy. Four lanes merging at the intersections from all directions, without lights or stop signs, and honking seems to be much more understood than a blinking signal… but somehow it works. 

The local public transportation, called “Esprit de mort”, is a trashed van which crams as many people in it as can fit. Having to ride in one of those is putting your life at risk, as its name well describes (spirit of death). 

Most people seem so desperate, living in a “survival mode”, that thinking beyond today's immediate needs is almost impossible. I don’t think you can even call Congo a developing country…more like pre-developing.

Christopher and Daniel. Daniel is a young man from our church in Germany who came to help us for 1 month.

In contrast to all of this, which adds to my frustration of understanding the situation. Congo is possibly the world's richest country in terms of natural resources (gold, cobalt, diamonds, rubber, water, and much more...), but this doesn’t seem to help its people.

So people ask me "Why come here? Why Congo? Why invest time, money and effort here, while most people have given up hope for this country?" I asked a guy from Washington state, who had just moved his young family here to work with MAF, a missionary aviation company, this same question yesterday. 

 His answer, put bluntly: 
“Because Congo needs some freek’in help! It’s like one of the last frontiers.” He went on to say that it is a country that still hasn’t recognized its own potential yet.  Most people don’t see it, but he wants to be part of that change.

 

I've been told that 15 million people live in Kinshasa.  At least 50% of those are children. Is there hope for this country? Who will be the ones to bring about change in this country?  It is the children. 

 That is why for me the only thing worth investing in the Congo is in the lives of children... 

Children who have been taught to value the nature and natural resources of their country, and not to destroy it or sell it in exchange for vanishing rewards... 

Children who begin to realize that finding solutions to a problem is much better than being given a hand-out to address a need... children that learn that hard work and perseverance is better than being named “the most intelligent kid” in the class. But the most important aspect for me… I dream of Congolese children that believe that they are wonderful creatures, loved by of a Heavenly Father, and that as their minds, hearts and actions are transformed into “image bearers of God”, they have the incredible potential to bring about huge changes in this country.
 

 
Watch these little videos we put together above about this past weeks teacher training week in the Congo 

So I’ll return to Congo in 2 weeks to build into a Congolese team of administrators and educators who will invest in the children of their country through education that is immersed in values which we believe bring about change.

Kende malamu!! (Good bye)

Our great team of Congolese teachers-in-training

A place of refuge...

Bonifacio, Corsica

 

Taste and see that the Lord is good, blessed is the one who takes refuge in Him.

Psalm 34:8

Just woke up to the sound of birds, the bright sun streaming through the cracks of the thick wooden shutter and then the wonderful smell of this island of Corsica… a mix of rosemary, oleander, eucalyptus and the smell of the Mediterranean all in one.

I know this place… I have come here many times  on wonderful vacations since I was 13. Here the past and present are mixed together. Memories, impressions, thoughts and emotions blend and have a balm-like effect on my soul.

The Coastal beach of Palombagia, Corsica

God allows “oases” in our lives where our minds, bodies, and souls can come to a repose and sense His goodness and care for us His children.

It is so easy to doubt His goodness when the walls of certain stabilities of our life come tumbling down.  Those events can destabilize, threaten, and send me into a “quick fix” pattern, and that is the time I am faced with a choice:  to lie buried under those crumbled walls, or to stand up and see the bigger picture. My belief that God is in control and that He actually is the foundation under those walls is what gives purpose to my life.

So this morning I chose to take refuge in him and taste and see that the Lord is extremely good.  

I am here, on this beautiful island with the ones I hold the most dear… feeling his goodness through this gift of refuge….

 

To hope – Esperer – Hoffen - të shpresojnë – الأمل - si ay u rajaynayaa

I don’t know how you have been taking in the current events regarding the mass influx of migrants.  Here is Europe there is no way that one cannot be aware of the issue. We see the news about boats carrying human cargo stranded for days at sea… ships sinking with hundreds of migrants on board… smugglers abandoning their cargo to “chance”… countries finding mass graves of people who have been trafficked and then left to die… adults, children, elderly, who are starving, traumatized, with nothing left…

Khayelitsha ( Xhosa for New Home), township in South Africa

… and yet the migrants keep coming, they keep trying, they keep going on, taking the next what might be fatal step, all because they hope to find peace somewhere, and they hold on to that small ounce of HOPE.

I saw it in the eyes of the woman I had breakfast with yesterday morning at the refugee center in my neighboring town.   

A new friend from the refugee center near us

 Hope - for something better.  She left Macedonia with her husband and their little boy, along with about 20 others, crammed into a truck set for Germany. Germany was the country in which they hoped to find what they didn’t have back home.  She said there was nothing for her and her family in Macedonia - no work, no suitable place to live, no hope for the future of their little boy.  I looked around the simple “common room” at the refugee center we were meeting in for a breakfast get together with some of the refugee women, and thought that this wasn’t really great either.  However, for this young mother sitting next to me, it was more than satisfactory.  They had food, safety, a warm place to live, the company of others in the same plight and… HOPE.

My son Michael texted me last night with a disappointed message.  An important scholarship he had applied for had sent him an email informing him that he was disqualified from the scholarship because his file was incomplete; the school transcripts were missing. Oh, no!  He worked so hard to get it all in and he was quite certain it was. I starting praying and I texted Grandma, our prayer warrior, to pray as well that if they did have it they would find it,  somewhere.  He called them and told them that he was pretty sure that his college had sent it all in.  30 minutes later they called him back and said they had found it.  It had been misplaced. What a sigh of relief - not because he received the scholarship, but because there was still HOPE that he might.

In the Bible, in the book of Luke there is a story of a blind man who sits on the side of the road begging. When he hears that Jesus of Nazareth is passing by he is filled with HOPE and starts yelling out: “Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me!” 
 Oh boy, how many times have I felt like that blind beggar.  We probably all have if we are honest.

I know - I can’t compare my degree of “despair” to his, or to the refugee lady I sat next too yesterday, or anything remotely comparable to those thousands of migrants stranded at sea.  But I do know what it feels like to hold on to a little bit of hope. To not give up trying… or fighting… or running… or enduring… because of the potential of something: new, better, peace, or joy that I am hoping is around the next bend in the road…

I sometimes wonder how people keep on going in desperate situations when they don’t believe in a God who is sovereign, who has promised to walk through those desperate moments with them, and in whom they can put their trust. It would seem to me that just to hope isn’t enough. Hope alone has been shown to increase your chance of achieving something better because of the power of positive thinking. But is it enough?

Phil and Tammy at Cape Good Hope ( South Africa)

I’m not a theologian, and don’t aspire to be. I also don’t have many answers about the reason for so much suffering in the world. But like that blind beggar I am so thankful that I can cry out to Jesus, “Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me…” 

… to Jesus who sees me, who loves me, who walks with me and has my life in His sight. …to have mercy on these unjust situations in the world, on us, on me… on you.